The night is coming
a butterfly falls and dies,
its wings too worn now
to lift his head to the sun,
so accepts the dark as fate.
Nothing escapes the day’s end
save the unknown waiting there.
Art
I mark the Florentine in a face
in these dark features
eyes too large for her brow
and in their turn shadows black,
lost to age on some lost fresco,
dark and imperfect as they are
their lids expose a world
unconcerned with the golden rule,
for in those eyes, life,
fragile and ever changing life
devoid of all art’s demands.
The Blue.
The evening turns blue
a place in-between colours
of distinct palettes
that of the day’s hopefulness
and the unknown of the night.
As A Stranger.
Be in this world
as though you were a stranger
unknown to any, not even blood
to speak in a tongue
which nobody hears
and thus ignores
walk barefoot to find comfort
and naked cross all oceans
greet all
as you would have them you
in the wilderness you roam,
for only as a stranger
can you find your true home.
The Raven’s Pity
No more will ravens scream their way
to lynching ropes that swing and sway
though not for want of knotted hemp,
as now the mob is unrepentant
and seek the hangman’s dream once more
of blind injustice to explore
his coward’s heart put to test
upon the voiceless and oppressed,
but even birds of misfortune
will have no truck with fascist tunes
of vainglory bereft of art
and for their gibbet darkened hearts
Beyond The Bull of Mammon
My mortality is Manhattan
in snow cast February
the chill of The Battery
from the cold Atlantic lows.
I join the dark clad lost souls
departing in turn
an elegiac procession
into subway tombs
as the night brushes day away
like death does a life.
Yet the world carries on
as Charon takes my coin
to a dirge played on an old violin
in the aching hands of a youth
tired beyond his years
doomed as I
to this underworld of unrealised dreams.
We are below the living, below the neon suns
which offer no warmth
to those who remain.
My mortality is Manhattan
in snow cast February
and how I, from my tomb..
..yearn to feel winter’s chill once more
Dark Cloud
he looked to the skies
like Camus in a rainstorm
his wry smile breaking,
perhaps there was some meaning
to the darkest of the clouds.
Underground
they are the visible invisible
whom we pass by
the pre-extinct
before our eyes
death’s pioneers
that expose the lie
there but for the grace of
God, go I.
The Deluded (a brief defence of poets)
Deluded are we
the lost of humanity
yet be the most humane
because we seek beauty
and evil
in equal measure
to sing of their duality.
Deluded are we
the writers of no wrongs
but righteous all the same
for the light is bright
as is the dark to us
and thus is not one state
more precious than the other.
Deluded we may be
in our insobriety
we are more clear headed
than the stone carved philosopher
whose thoughts
carry the weight of marble
whilst ours, the feathered skies.
Argyros
these silver waters are muse
to the sacred swans
upon its fertile banks,
they call not in sharp tones
as do their earthly brethren
for they sing
as Goddesses sing
and in their lyric
is held the hearts of men.
the blighters rock 